Semiotics of making: beginnings of a theoretical frame

Abstract

The contemporary problem of semiotics in architecture is an inherited struggle, not a chosen one. We consider the question of architectural communication because we inevitably recognize its centrality to the problem ofarchitecture itself. While the twentieth-century impact of Saussure and his birthing of structuralism gave architecture a new ground from which to reconceive its own semiotic functions, it was probably never possible that such a synchronic and undialogic theory would suit such a disparate and intersubjective activity. This is not to say that semiotics offers no guidance for the problem of architecture. It may say, however, that to use semiotics productively is not to start from its constructs but instead from architecture’s own.To that end, this study intends to establish a conceptualbasis for communication and meaning in architectural form by an inquiry into making. The initial judgment about why making might prove to be more useful than otherarchitectural characteristics is due to is its essential dialogicnature; it already is a semiotic. In that sense what follows is an opportunistic examination. It arises from what should be considered a powerful—if somewhat neglected—text on making: Elaine Scarry’s 1985 The Body in Pain. A deeper consideration of this work is long overdue. While Scarry’sbook seems to enjoy a rather wide readership, its potential impact has been largely unrealized since few scholars have developed its implications. Given the extraordinary originality of its argument, the artful construction of its prose, and the complex sophistication of its logic, it offers a rich—albeit demanding—place from which to begin.The objective of this study is to schematize Scarry’s theory of making such that connections to a semiotic understanding of its potentials may be realized. Following this effort, a short examination of one particular semiotic aspect of making will be argued as a tentative ground from which to guide further investigation.